Faisal Shahzad was back in the headlines Tuesday afternoon.
During a brief appearance in federal court, the man accused of trying to
detonate a car bomb in Times Square was
arraigned on five counts of terrorism-related charges. At the same time,
more details were emerging about the roots
of Shahzad's radicalization and his suspected
connections to individuals in Pakistan,
including an army major and members of Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP).
Nearly three weeks after Shahzad's failed car bomb, there are at
least three important lessons about what it means for U.S. counterterrorism
policy.
Law enforcement is a
necessary and invaluable component of U.S. counterterrorism strategy. As
policymakers sort out the case's international links -- in Pakistan, Yemen,
and even Jamaica
-- recall that federal, state, and local law-enforcement officials in the
United States first defused the threat in Times Square (with help from a few
alert New Yorkers) and later apprehended Shazhad, a man with no prior criminal
record, within 54 hours of the incident. This sequence of events -- which
included what NYPD Commissioner Raymond Kelly called "seamless"
cooperation between his organization and the FBI's local Joint Terrorism Task
Force -- demonstrated that the effective use of law enforcement tools is a
critical component of U.S.
counterterrorism efforts.
Furthermore, a frequent criticism of the government's
response -- that the administration was wrong to charge Shahzad in civilian
courts because doing so would hamper intelligence-gathering efforts -- ignores
one key point: Shahzad has
been
cooperating
with investigators. In doing so, he joins the numerous other alleged and
convicted terrorists -- including Umar Farouk
Abdulmutallab, David
Headley, and Bryant
Neal Vinas -- who have provided U.S. officials valuable intelligence when
charged in civilian courts.
"Homegrown
extremism" is a limited, but still serious, problem. Why would a 30-year-old
American citizen, middle-class homeowner, and MBA seemingly abandon his life in
the United States
for the danger and violence of global terrorism? Last weekend, a lengthy New York Times report provided
some clues. Shahzad reportedly disdained
U.S. foreign policy,
especially the wars in Iraq
and Afghanistan.
Shahzad had also apparently embraced
the rhetoric of radical Yemeni-American cleric Anwar al-Awlaki.
If true, these anecdotes support a thesis advanced in a
March CSIS report: A small but significant number of typically young, predominantly male, Muslim
U.S. legal residents and citizens seem to have become seduced by an al
Qaeda-promulgated fringe narrative that the United States and West are at war with
Islam. Some have used this narrative to justify traveling abroad to fight
with foreign insurgencies or receive
terrorist training. If well-trained, these individuals, especially those
with overseas connections, may prove particularly dangerous because they
possess a sort of "duality" that allows them to flow seamlessly between the United States
and foreign countries.
Most of these individuals relied on some sort of
intermediary -- like an extremist cleric or terrorist recruiter -- to catalyze
their violent turn. Denying these connections requires timely intervention on
several levels -- capturing or killing figures like Awlaki, or preventing Internet
radicalization. Policymakers need to puncture the narrative by, for
instance, highlighting the fact that al Qaeda's terrorism victims are overwhelmingly
Muslim.
Pakistan,
a central node of global terrorism, must remain a principal focus of U.S.
counterterrorism efforts. In the past year, the Pakistani military launched
separate campaigns in Swat Valley and South Waziristan
against the TTP. After years of cajoling Islamabad
to crack down on militancy, U.S.
officials were quick to praise these
efforts. But recent allegations
that the TTP was behind Shahzad's alleged plot call into question the efficacy
of Pakistan's
military campaigns.
Indeed, as a recent New America
Foundation report
noted, some TTP elements fled from South to North
Waziristan, where they have grown closer to that region's militant
groups, including al Qaeda and the Haqqani Network. This unification of
once-disparate groups spells trouble for U.S. and Pakistani officials; as
terrorism expert Bruce Riedel remarked,
traditionally local outfits like the TTP act as a "force multiplier for al Qaeda"
if they come to embrace global terrorism.
Administration officials readily point
out that U.S. and
Pakistani military pressure has degraded certain terrorist capabilities in
areas like North Waziristan. Still, these
efforts have been insufficient in truly rolling back militancy in Pakistan's
northwest. In addition to expanding military operations against these elements,
Pakistan, with continued U.S.
support, needs to undertake a more aggressive program of economic, political,
and social development in its semigoverned tribal regions. As long as these
areas remain outside the umbrella of the Pakistani state, they will continue to
foster terrorism and pose a threat to Pakistan,
the United States,
and the rest of the world.
Rick "Ozzie" Nelson is
the director, and Ben Bodurian the research assistant, of the Homeland Security
and Counterterrorism Program at the Center for Strategic and International
Studies.
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